


Would You Rather

by gardenvarietyunique



Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gideon/Jeannemary but only in Jeannemary's dreams, gtnholidayexchange2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardenvarietyunique/pseuds/gardenvarietyunique
Summary: The game began the moment they heard the invitation. Would you rather spend an entire spaceflight listening to Magnus do his standup routine or be cursed to talk in only dad jokes? Would you rather lose the competition but win all the riches in the universe, or win Lyctorhood but never be able to go home again?
Relationships: Jeannemary Chatur & Isaac Tettares
Comments: 21
Kudos: 145





	Would You Rather

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kododendron as part of the Gideon Holiday Exchange. The prompt I chose was "wholesome shitty teen bonding" with a heaping helping of "teens speculating/commenting on the other weirdos at Canaan House". I hope you like it!

VII. 

“Would you rather have Dulcinea cough blood all over you, or sit through Protesilaus trying to give a speech?”

Jeannemary considers her answer from a crouch on a catwalk suspended, fine as spider silk, light years above the dessicated sunroom at Canaan House. The room had been beautiful once, full of lush plants in exquisitely painted vases, sprawling rugs and finely woven linen canopies, the gentle babble of water fountaining over elegant sculptures and into tiled pools of brightly colored fish. Now everything was decomposed into dust or bare bare bones, and dead.  
Dulcinea had been beautiful once, too. She was still okay looking, if you could get over the feeling that soon she’d be just as dead and hollow as the sunroom.

“Protesilaus, I guess.”

They had been sitting on the trellis, playing Would You Rather, for nearly a quarter of an hour. Some teens—not well-trained, sophisticated future cav-and-lyctor teens, obviously, couldn’t keep still for so long. Those teens are not systematically stalking all the other cavs and necros in Canaan House for information.

“Where has he been, anyway?” Isaac shifts a little, sending a fine stream of dust into midair. They both freeze. Dulcinea, far away on her lounge chair, crutches laid neatly aside, turns a page in her novel. Safe.

“Typical necro, just wants to laze around and study things.” Jeannemary pulls a face at Isaac. Isaac rolls his eyes.

“I would never make you leave me and you know it, what if he runs into something too dangerous for both of them to handle?”

“The Ninth necro’s already ditched her cavalier, too,” Jeannemary says. “Now that, I really don’t get.”

The thing about being the smallest and the nimblest is that no one notices you following them, so long as you’re very, very good. Jeannemary and Isaac, with a lifetime of sneaking up on or away from Abigail and Magnus, are the best. They had settled on their strategy early on. No sense in getting yourself in trouble when you can let someone else (unwittingly) collect information for you.Figure out everyone else’s strategies, then figure out your own.

“We need to get our hands on Harrowhark’s map when she’s done with it, if we can,” Isaac says, but Jeannemary’s still on her tangent.

“I mean, Lady Dulcinea is sick, so I guess it makes sense for her to stay here. She’s fragile. But if you had a partner as big and strong and fast and as skilled as Gideon the Ninth—”

“I swear, if you start talking about skullface’s biceps again—”

“They’re huge!”

Another trickle of dust. They hold their breath. Wait for it, wait for it…

Just out of sight, someone throws open the sunroom door and strides across the room with big, strong, fast, skilled steps. Dulcinea looks up. She smiles so radiantly at the Ninth nun that the teens can practically feel the heat wave. Jeannemary does an involuntary little moan.

“Seriously? Seriously, Jeanne?”

“She’s so tall!”

Down below, Dulcinea wraps one trembling arm around Gideon’s meaty neck and is lifted, cradled, carried to a new lounge chair deeper in the shade of a decrepit former canopy. Jeannemary squirms.

“Ooh, you have it bad,” Isaac whispers, or tries to. Jeannemary pinches him and he chokes back a yelp. Rotten boy, her expression says. He makes silent smoochy faces.

“This isn’t going anywhere,” Isaac says at last, when it’s been nearly another quarter of an hour and all Dulcinea has done is make Gideon fidget and shuffle a lot.  
Jeannemary watches them with eyes full of longing, but at last she sighs and scoots away with Isaac, down the catwalk, to a narrow door that leads into a side gallery.

“Protesilaus must be going back to their quarters sometimes,” Jeannemary says. “Someone has to help her change her nightgowns and hankies.”

“Unless she’s faking it and she’s really well enough to do it herself.”

Distant, echoing all the way from the sunroom, there’s a terrible cough.

“Okay, so she’s probably not faking it.”

“Doesn’t make her less dangerous. We need to look for her cavalier. He’s up to something.”

Jeannemary sighs, and they head out of the gallery in search of someone else to spy on. She casts one longing look over her shoulder, and Isaac rolls his eyes so hard his head hurts.

“Would you rather stay here and watch her get flirted at by someone else, or start figuring this place out?”

IV.

The game began the moment they heard the invitation. Would you rather spend an entire spaceflight listening to Magnus do his standup routine or be cursed to talk in only dad jokes? Would you rather wear your itchiest formal robes for the rest of your life or introduce yourself at Canaan House stark naked? Would you rather lose the competition but win all the riches in the universe, or win Lyctorhood but never be able to go home again?

Screw the interminable barrage of trainers, advisers, doctors, etiquette consultants, and media intriguers who had tried wrangling them into any other kind of conversation between the announcement and the arrival at Canaan House. The only questions that mattered could be answered this way:

1\. Like we’ll even have a choice, Isaac.

2\. Hardcore pass on the nuddy, gross! 

3\. Pretty sure only one of us goes home a Lyctor.

“But you’ll come with me, obviously,” Isaac had said, frowning, suddenly serious. Jeannemary rolled her eyes. 

“So we’re definitely winning now?”

Isaac stuck his fist out. “Go home winners or not at all.”

By that point they were halfway to Canaan House. Everything had gone pretty much to hell after the *announcement was made. Every adult in a trillion mile radius had descended on them in a flurry of concern and fear. They were too young, the adults said. They didn’t know enough. They were going to get themselves and others killed.

Getting into open space was a massive relief. No balm to the harangued teenage soul like hours of low-voiced humming silence on a sparsely manned spacecraft. 

Even Abigail and Magnus were subdued. The trip was downright soothing.

“I’ll become a lyctor and you’ll be my cavalier and we’ll serve the emperor,” Isaac said. “Plain and simple. Any questions?” He had that look he got sometimes, even though his tone was teasing. This is the Real Shit, his look said.

“I mean, if I have to,” said Jeannemary. She knocked her knuckles to his. Knock knock, snap, her-to-his-hand clap, lock your elbows together,and bump shoulders in silent solidarity. One flesh, one end, one handshake. Tempting as all the riches in universe sounded.

III.

Collecting intel on the Third is easy; it’s avoiding them that would take real effort.

“Would you rather have Ianthe’s skill but Naberius’s two brain cells,or Naberius’s technique but Ianthe’s face?”

“What’s that, you little creep?” Naberius saves Isaac the trouble of an answer. “Are you pint-sized weirdos following us?”

“Only thing pint sized is his dick,” Isaac mutters.

“That’s generous,” says Jeannemary.

“What did you say to me?”

They never set out to spy on the Third specifically, it just sort of happened. Go to a meal and the Third is bitching around in a corner. Walk to your room and they’re snapping at each other from across the foyer. Try to get a single moment of peace and quiet and necromantic research and the Third is there, being louder and more obnoxious than either teenager could be if they tried, and (as Magnus and Abigail can attest) they have tried. Pretty hard.

“He traded his other brain cells for extra muscles, probably.” Isaac rolls his eyes.

“I’m talking to you, asshole!”

“Ignore them, Babs.” Coronabeth turns around to scowl at Jeannemary and Isaac, who take turns look spectacularly disinterested and shrugging.

“We just happen to be heading in the same direction.” Isaac has never sounded more virtuous in his life.

“You’ve been skulking around since day one—”

“You’re being such a pain right now, really—”

“Both of you shut up.” Ianthe doesn’t bother to look back at the teens. She doesn’t even look at her followers as she sweeps into the gym. Isaac and Jeannemary enter a few steps behind. They really would like to spend time there, it’s just that the Third and its collective idiocy is unavoidable.

“They really are her followers,” Isaac murmurs. He settles down while Jeannemary, under the pretext of clumsiness, stumbles and looses a practice sword that goes flying across the room. Coronabeth catches it without fumble or panic. She steps in front of Ianthe with the dedication and precision of a cavalier.

“Miss Bouncy’s got better reflexes than you, Isaac. What kind of necromantic training does the Third house do?” Coronabeth is yelling at Jeanne, but whatever.  
“But Ianthe flinched away.” And Naberius, for all his pretty muscles and fancy footwork is still uselessly lecturing Jeannemary about safety. Not that they’d give a shit about someone who treated them as rudely as Ianthe treats Naberius. There are limits.

Jeannemary shrugs and turns back to Isaac, who bites his lip. “Ianthe’s skill for sure. Not that I need it, obviously.”  
Isaac is saved a smart answer from his cav because the Ninth nun walks past the doorway, and this time Jeannemary fumbles her freshly-retrieved practice sword for real. 

“Who’s got two brain cells now, Jeanne?”

“Shut up, Isaac.”

VIII.

Collecting intel on the Eighth is hard.

There is everything to see, provided you’re happy with exactly what the Eighth willingly displays. Either they’re the most honest pair here, or the most well-versed in concealing true intentions. They never socialize or wander or do anything that doesn’t reflect an image of spotless, terrifying piety.

“Would you rather try and get into their quarters or follow them back from a meal?”

“Would you rather wait and see if they’re going anywhere at night or take a direct approach and challenge them to a duel?”

“Would you rather create a diversion to try and separate them, or split up and see if they’ll be sympathetic to one of us on our own, maybe acting lost or hurt?”  
In the end they aren’t brave enough to try anything.

“I bet they pray all day,” Isaac says. 

“I bet I could take him,” Jeannemary says. They sit just out of sight on the ledge of a stairwell too disintegrated for anyone heavier than Jeannemary to spider up, passing treats pilfered from Abigail back and forth, eyes on the entrance to the Eight’s chambers. 

“I’m sure you could take him,” Isaac assures her. “But if that happens, I’ll help you. I’d rather you don’t have to do anything alone.”

II.

The Second does absolutely nothing, as far as they can tell. It makes sitting in their closet terribly boring.

The Second doesn’t use their closet for anything. Presumably they eat, sleep, and bathe in their uniforms.

This is a real boon, considering how hard it was to boost Isaac into the disused air duct that runs from a cobwebbed facilities room three suites away and opens up to a broad decorative grate just loose enough that a boy could wiggle out, unlock an overlooked balcony door, and hoist his cavalier over the edge after she free climbs from the ground floor via ancient trellises, pockmarked stone, and three highly unpleasant gargoyles. After that it was an easy thing to squeeze into the closet right before the Second came back from dueling practice. 

The closet is a tight fit. Jeannemary stretches her arms as far as she can, which isn’t very far. Her arms ache.

“Would you rather be able to fly but never able to sit down, or able to relax anywhere but never have any privacy?”

“You were the one who looked at those walls and said ‘I can climb that’.”

Outside, the Second is arguing about how best to fidget with something that hisses and crinkles and occasionally makes strange squawking noises, but cannot possibly be the thing explicitly banned from Canaan House. Their military discipline is matched only by incredible off-duty, private quarters-only insurrection.

“I’m allowed to be sore, you only squeezed through an air duct.”

“Maybe it will make your biceps bigger.”

The noise Isaac makes when she elbows him is only covered by an exceptionally loud sound from whatever device the Second is screwing with.

“I can’t believe nothing has happened to them yet,” Jeannemary says.

“Who’s going to enforce the rules? Teacher? A pile of bone dust?”

“I don’t know, an act of God? The Eighth, maybe? They’re weird enough.” Beyond the closet, the *communication device—it’ can’t be anything else—makes *a noise that may be a radio broadcast. The Second crow with delight. High five-slapping sounds and much jovial swearing ensue.

“They could call for help and bring down the whole army to stop the rest of us.”

“Do you want to leave?”

“No,” Isaac whispers. They listen to the Second for a long time. “If the Emperor didn’t need us, he wouldn’t have gathered us all here, right? It’s important.” He tries to sound casual and composed and brave.

“Right,” says Jeannemary, who sounds just as uncomfortable as he does. “We wait them out and find a way to use this to our advantage.”

“I think that’s the best plan, yeah.”

“It will be fine.”

VI.

The Sixth is exactly as smart as they look, which is irritating.

“Would you rather what?” Palamedes considers them with furrowed brow. Jeannemary finds him disconcertingly skinny (don’t they feed people in the Sixth?) and Isaac finds him depressingly tall. And with such smooth, unblemished skin. Not that he’s jealous. It’s fine.

“I’d rather they didn’t sneak around after us,” Camilla says, coming up behind her cavalier with a neutral, pleasant expression that isn’t particularly reassuring. She’s tough and she’s scary. You can tell by the way she moves, no matter how hard she tries not to seem so. Only an idiot wouldn’t catch it at first.

There are plenty of idiots here.

“It’s nothing,” Isaac mutters.

“We’re not sneaking after anyone,” Jeannemary says. She tries to sound affronted. It would have been much easier to pull off for Magnus and Abigail; Camilla is too pretty.

The four of them stand at an awkward detente in the empty, overarching hallway with its colossal pillars and doors out into strange corridors of foreign materials and unknown aesthetics. The library isn’t far. Originally the plan was to trace the Sixth house to a convenient turning point and then double back, go up a few flights, and infiltrate the library via the balcony. There are plenty of places to hide on the balcony. It wouldn’t have worked, too, if it weren’t for these sharp eyed assholes. Doesn’t the Sixth House know that eavesdropping on other peoples’ conversations is rude?

“It was a private question for Jeannemary,” Isaac says when it becomes clear Palamedes won’t just get disgusted with the teens and walk away. No one else pays attention to them like this. No one else takes them this seriously.

“What a coincidence. I was having a private conversation with Camilla.” Palamedes and his cavalier trade some serious significant eye contact.

“Would you rather I ask again why you’re following us, or would you prefer to turn back around and go find someone else to conveniently loiter in the same vicinity as?” Camilla’s voice is as neutral and pleasant as her face.

“Technically she didn’t ask us anything, she made an observation,” Jeannemary mutters. She’s obscurely pleased by the fleeting look of rage on Camilla’s face. Never try to out-smartass a teenager.

The Ninth cavalier materializes in the doorway. It’s a wonder that someone so big and tall and alluringly wrapped in swishy robes can move so quietly. She glides towards Camilla, who’s stepped back and folded her arms and begun to look very peeved. It’s way more genuine emotion than she’s shown before.

“Are they working together?” Isaac’s voice is so soft it flies under Camilla’s curt hello. He lights up in an evil grin at Jeannemary’s expression. “Are you jealous?”

“Hey, Fourth house.” Palamedes has remembered they are there, and his tone is final.“Go lurk somewhere else.”

“I’m so right,” Isaac whispers, and takes off at a sprint with Jeannemary chasing him.

V.

Spying on Abigail and Magnus is both the easiest and the most difficult thing of all. On the one hand, it isn’t hard to get close to them.

“Would you rather tell them what we’re doing, or treat them like the others?”

“I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk.” Abigail waves them to a seat in the Fifth’s anteroom. They haven’t dared get this close to any of the other teams. It not like they even could. *The Ninth has barricade themselves behind the universe’s most melodramatic bone ward, and the last time they got too close to Palamedes Sextus he started enthusiastically quizzing them on science facts.

On the other hand, they have to get close to Abigail and Magnus. It already feels like a betrayal.

“We’re so glad to see the two of your still enjoying your game,” Magnus says.

Isaac suppresses a groan and Jeannemary rolls her eyes.

“You’re so embarrassing.”

“Who, me? It can’t be!”

“Mega embarrassing.”

“Which of you two rascals is winning? And is there room for a late entry?” He winks at them, which is the most embarrassing thing of all. Freaking Magnus.

“I don’t think it’s a game you can win, dear,” Abigail sets down a tray of tea and pastries. She and Magnus take one each, which leaves a heaping platterful. This is  
nearly enough pastries, as far as Jeannemary and Isaac are concerned. Pastries vanish at light speed.

Abigail is as calm and comfortable as Magnus is obnoxious. Her voice is familiar, warm, like being dipped into a bubblebath or tucked under a childhood quilt. It doesn’t make what she has to say any easier to hear.

“I think you’ve both started off with the right attitude. There need not be winners or losers. Think of it like a library; if we share in trust and knowledge, everyone will be enlightened. We’re proud of your collaborative spirits. We’re so proud of you for not giving in to the bad attitudes of some of your peers.”

Not 'our peers', they note. Ageism strikes again.

Is this a fair comment from a couple who’ve always, always been the training wheels on their partnership?

“But that doesn’t mean you can trust them,” Magnus says, voice heavy. So it’s this lecture again. “There will be people who value their own lives over the lives of others, maybe even over the lives of their necromancer or cavalier. People with more experience may try to take advantage of you.”

“You mean people like you?” Isaac can’t resist the jab.

Abigail sighs, but Magnus looks genuinely troubled for a moment.

“We would do anything in our power for you, Isaac; Jeannemary,” Abigail says. We’d send you back yesterday if we could, she doesn’t need to say.

“Is it in your power to get us more pastries?” Jeannemary crams down another pastry and fierce, nearly violent pride in her smart attitude and defusing comments and ability to eat anything in sight but gain only muscle wells up in Isaac. It nearly chokes him. Abigail is shaking her head. She still looks solemn, though Magnus has regained most of his cheer.

“You’re not taking this seriously, Jeannemary.”

“I am too, we know you want everyone to succeed but us especially. We’re keeping an eye on the others and Isaac’s doing his own research. We know you’ll let us help you the minute you know something important.”

“We know it’s dangerous out there,” Isaac says, as earnestly as he can, as if he and his cav didn’t just catch that look of shame and worry that passed between Abigail and Magnus like a burst of static electricity. They do know something.

“But you may not know…” Magnus’s voice drops to a dramatic whisper. “It’s just as dangerous in here!” 

Magnus lunges for Isaac and hoists him, kicking, up into the air. “Jeannemary, defend your necromancer!”

“Omigooood, Magnus, no! Put me down!” Isaac kicks and struggles but to no avail.

“Magnus, the tea service!” Abigail snatches the teapot to safety just as Jeannemary goes flying through the space it previously occupied. She shrieks and pummels Magnus and his terrible free tickling hand while Isaac howls.

“We’re too old for this, Magnus!”

“Put him down!”

“You’ll never defeat me, Jeannemary the Fifth!”

“We’re not kids anymore!”

“Stop squeezing me, I’m going to puke!”

“Hi Going to Puke, I’m Magnus!”

IV.

“Would you rather get up close and personal with her but have absolutely zero help from me, or sit here and be subtle?”

“I’m being totally subtle, Isaac.”

There are a lot of difficulties to consider when it comes to stalking the Ninth, like melodramatic bone wards and the non-zero possibility of *being outright murdered for parts by Harrowhark, but the biggest problem is…Jeannemary.

“Could you be less weird?”

“I’m not being weird!” Jeannemary flexes her biceps. At this point it might be an involuntary response to just seeing the Ninth cav, who knows. Isaac buries his face in his hands and waits for his cav and her perfectly good biceps to get their collective shit together.

The other major problem with eavesdropping on the Ninth is that, while the cavalier is hard to miss, the necromancer is missing. It was hard to notice at first. She’s small and unobtrusive and almost as good at skulking as they are, and she’s spent all her time at Canaan House wandering around, never to the same place twice, taking notes. Fine. Safe, even. Surely if and when she discovers something, she’ll need her cavalier’s help.

Isaac would like his cavalier’s help very much, but she’s distracted.

“What is Bounteous Biceps doing now?”

“She always runs the staircase twice and then goes over to lift that bench by the big empty fireplace. Twenty reps. Three times each. And you know’s she gotta be working out behind that bone ward, too.” Jeannemary is breathless with anticipation. Far down on the other end of the great hall, away from the door where Jeannemary nearly trembles with anticipation, Gideon the Ninth charges the stairs.

She takes them three at a time, in long robes, because of course she does. Jeannemary sighs. Isaac gives up on the teasing and pats her back. “She’s not nearly as scary as her necromancer, anyway. Are we doing this, or aren’t we?”

It’s no use spying on someone who doesn’t know anything. Jeannemary squares her shoulders. She holds her head high and gives her sword a quick pat. Time for drastic measures.

Gideon comes bounding down the steps with a hint of hair—red hair!—peeking out from under her hood, and skids to a stop. Beads of commingled sweat and makeup fly off her face. Jeannemary takes a deep breath.

“H-hi I was wondering—if you have a moment—could you maybe—”

“She wants a lesson but she’s too chicken to ask.”

Jeannemary shoots him the nastiest, most grateful look of their entire lives. The Ninth cav sighs, which apparently is not against the creepo death cult code. Then she gestures to the center of the hall.

Isaac sits against the wall and busies himself with a book while the girls dance around the hall stabbing at each other or whatever. Jeannemary’s getting her ass kicked, but she’s got a look of pure glee on her face.

“Sooner or later,” she had said, while they planned the gambit, “her necromancer will have to come find her, right? They’re a team, right? Imagine Abigail leaving Magnus for a whole twenty-four hours. She’d never.”

It’s not the soundest plan, but it’s not a bad break for subterfuge, either. Jeannemary shouts and lunges forward only to be beaten back; she laughs and it rings around the hall. Either Harrowhark will come looking for her cav, or they’ll have to keep stalking around Canaan House until they’ve thoroughly investigated everyone, which is fine. They have time. He’d rather take a break and enjoy the moment.


End file.
